HOSPITAL TREATMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1918, Page 7

HOSPITAL TREATMENT.

, OF RETURNED SOLDIERS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Oct. 11. An extension of the provision for the treatment of soldiers, who return suffering from consumption, was announced by the Minister for Defence. A new sanatorium is to be erected at Hatuma, Hawke's Bay, and tenders for tiie work are to close on October 10, and the contract will provide for the completion of the work in April. Sir James Allen said that the sanatorium will ;be a most complete block of buildings, and in designing it the greatest care has been taken to make it as perfect as an institution of the kind as can be made Referring to the sugestion that the Government had not looked far enough ahead in regard to hospital requirements for wounded soldiers, the Minister said: "As a matter of fact, wo have been constantly looking ahead. The difficulty has been to determine the maximum number of beds likely to be required. As to the present situation, on September SO we had 1063 Tetiirned soldiers inpatients in tho hospitals and also 185 brought from the camps in New Zealand—l2so in all. I am advised that the maximum number of beds we are ever likely to require in the civil and defence hospitals and convalescent homes is about 2000 The provision we have made already, including the proposed additions to the Rotorua institutions, gives a grand total of nearly 1000 beds. In case the war were to end shortly, and the soldiers were to be returned more Tapidly than we anticipate. we have practically unlimited hospital accommodation at the Trentham, Featherston, and Narrow Nedk camps. Special facilities already exist in these camps, especially at Trentham, where ■m operating theatre has been established. If more beds are necessary, the annexe to the Auckland Hospital can easily be enlarged. It has already been suggested that we should add to it wards for 60 beds. The Rotorua accommodation could also, if necessary, be extended to 500 beds. I think the public will realise that all possible forethought has biyn exercised: